Dynasties

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book on the Great Sires of the Twentieth Century
Review: Edward Bowen has done it once again with having written a marvelous book about the great sires of the twentieth century and their influence upon the thoroughbred breed. All of the important sire lines are included, such as Nearco, Northern Dancer, Princequillo, Mr. Prospector, Hail to Reason, Nasrullah, Bull Lea, and, in this reviewer's opinion, the greatest sire of them all, Bold Ruler. Bowen gives a detailed biography of each sire and that horse's important descendants.

An added bonus is a section of charts in the back of the book of each sire's male line and the important winners from each of those lines. For example, the chart for Bold Ruler shows all of his male line ascendants, and his important descendants. One descendant, Bold Bidder, has under his name the important race horses Spectacular Bid and Cannonade, and Cannonade in turn sired Caveat who in turn sired Awad and Ops Smile. What is nice about the charts is that they instantly show how so few sires have had so much influence on thoroughbred racing.

I highly recommend this book and the companion book MATRIARCHS.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book on the Great Sires of the Twentieth Century
Review: Edward Bowen has done it once again with having written a marvelous book about the great sires of the twentieth century and their influence upon the thoroughbred breed. All of the important sire lines are included, such as Nearco, Northern Dancer, Princequillo, Mr. Prospector, Hail to Reason, Nasrullah, Bull Lea, and, in this reviewer's opinion, the greatest sire of them all, Bold Ruler. Bowen gives a detailed biography of each sire and that horse's important descendants.

An added bonus is a section of charts in the back of the book of each sire's male line and the important winners from each of those lines. For example, the chart for Bold Ruler shows all of his male line ascendants, and his important descendants. One descendant, Bold Bidder, has under his name the important race horses Spectacular Bid and Cannonade, and Cannonade in turn sired Caveat who in turn sired Awad and Ops Smile. What is nice about the charts is that they instantly show how so few sires have had so much influence on thoroughbred racing.

I highly recommend this book and the companion book MATRIARCHS.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating book about American thoroughbred bloodlines
Review: Edward Bowen has selected what he thinks are the most important sires of the twentieth century and devoted a chapter to each, giving their own achievements and those of their descendants, as well as information about some of the more interesting people involved. To this end, he has included one or two sire lines that might not actually be the most important, but where their story is particularly interesting. In his introduction, the author acknowledges that the Challenger sire line was selected instead of the Count Fleet or Pharamond lines precisely because it presented a more interesting story. None of them were essential based purely on their importance.

Of course, all the essential lines that are still thriving are there, including Nearco and Native Dancer, who between them have each established several important sire lines. Indeed, a significant proportion of the book is devoted to those stallions and their descendants, which include Storm cat, America's leading sire at the turn of the millennium, and Sadlers Wells, Europe's equivalent.

This book is not a comprehensive guide to sire lines. Although there are charts near the back of the book giving diagrams of the sire lines covered by the book, they do not list once-important but now extinct lines like the Diomed/Lexington line - a line that was already struggling at the beginning of the twentieth century, but somehow survived into the 1980's. Indeed, there is no diagram of the Herod dynasty at all, although a different branch of it survives in Europe, most notably via the Irish stallion Indian Ridge.

Also, the diagrams that are present focus, with few exceptions, on those branches where a stallion was standing in America at the time the book was written. Of course, this is understandable, as it is a book about American bloodlines, but since thoroughbred breeding is international, it is a bit misleading. The Hyperion line is not as close to extinction as the diagram makes it appear, although its long term future is uncertain.

Still, I have learned that the best place to look for comprehensive sire line charts is on the internet, which has the advantage of being more up-to-date than any book is ever likely to be. Despite my reservations about the charts, the author is a great storyteller and the charts will be sufficient for most purposes.